Adoor retrospective kicks off in Goa

Panaji, May 19 (UNI) Veteran Malyalam filmmaker and Padma Vibhushan receipient Adoor Gopalakrishnan today urged the governments and the people not to ignore the rich contribution of non-Hindi Indian language films.

He was addressing the audience here this evening after inaugurating the three-day film festival at the Kala Academy here in the presence of Goa Chief Minister Pratapsinh Rane.

''For most of the people, cinema means 'commercial' Hindi films, not those produced in 20 odd other languages. Respect all the other language films equally'' he urged the audience.

Regretting that India had very few film critics, Mr Gopalakrishnan said it was more difficult to be a real critic than to be a producer of a film as the former requires to study a lot about the art and craft of the film.

''Please invest in films in Goa and develop a young generation of film critics, writers, scholars and producers. Cannes is nowhere nearer to Goa in terms of its natural beauty with coconut trees and lagoons, more beautiful than Kerala,'' the veteran producer said.

Mr Rane, speaking on the occasion, said the just born Kala Academy Film Society would serve as an umbrella organisation for all film lovers, critics and others to encourage art films, including in different languages, besides striving for developing film culture to appreciate good films.

He said the government would build an annexe to the Kala Academy soon to accommodate a film studio, a film library and an exhibition hall so that it becomes a forum for seeing good films and their appreciation.

'Mathilukal' (Walls) made in 1989 would be the inaugural film for the festival, while 'Vidheyan' (The Docile), 'Anantharam' (Afterwards) and 'Nizhalkkuthu' (Shadow Kill) would be screened in the next two days.

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